The power of Universal Community Testing

By Abbie Wong

We’re in the midst of a pandemic that’s not going to end anytime soon. There are over twenty seven million cases worldwide, close to one million deaths, and a few certain government bodies don’t make enough of the right choices to ensure the safety of their countries. What are we supposed to do in this dire time?

Recently, the Hong Kong government opened a new program that would let people around the city get tested, keeping the people around them safe from the virus. You’ve definitely heard of it, and its name is the Universal Community Testing Program.

How the program works is that you first book a time at the testing facility of your choice on the website. When the day comes, you go there, get registered and tested, and you’re done. You will receive a text message with your results within 1-3 days. However, you might not even have to book a space if the testing facility isn’t too crowded.

The program started to provide testing on 1st September 2020, which also happened to be the day I went to get tested with my family. From my personal experiences, I didn’t have to wait very long to get tested and contrary to what some say about being tested, it’s not as uncomfortable as it looks. Your eyes may water after the mouth test and you might want to sneeze after the nose test, but that’s just about all of the unpleasantries you’ll face. After that, you’ll only have the mental unpleasantry of waiting for your results, even though the chance of you having the virus is low. Still, the possibility is there, as at least five cases were detected through the program. Just consider this as proof of the effectiveness of the program through detecting people with the virus.

A screenshot of the booking process for the Universal Community Testing program.

You might think that this doesn’t seem all that great, and that it might even be a waste of time because of time constraints or language barriers. As seen in the screenshot above, time slots range from 08:00 to 19:30, which gives plenty of time after school to get tested, or a little time before school. And even for me, whose Cantonese isn’t very good, I didn’t have much of a problem communicating with the people working at the facilities in English.

What about other people? How did they experience it?

“It was quite convenient since I did reserve the spot.” A Year 10 student stated, who got tested with her family. “The measurements taken and the facility were nice.” She also encouraged people with worries of being infected to get tested, and that families should go together. “It was convenient: didn’t need to wait long, [and] things were marked out properly.” An RCHK parent commented. “No large groups waiting.” This final comment sadly isn’t entirely true, proven by the queues of people all bunched together waiting to get tested later into the program.

That brings me to improvements. What could be done better with the Universal Community Testing Program? 

First of all, social distancing measures. You go online and everyone is praising the holy thing that is social distancing. But do you really try to do it if there aren’t any visual markings? I am guilty of this, and you probably are too. Outside of testing facilities, I think there should be certain markings for people lining up to get tested. While you might think this will cause people to miss their booking because of the shortened line, they are free to wait near the queue for a free spot. While doing research for this article, I saw numerous people sitting on benches outside of the Ma On Shan Sports Centre, a few of which were most likely waiting to line up.

Secondly, the results’ waiting time. While most of my family, including me, received our test results the day after via text, one of my family members had to wait for more than one day. While this may seem minor, she was fairly worried about why it was taking so long. Did she test positive for COVID-19, or did they just forget about her? Because of this, I would hope that whoever or whatever is sending the results is able to do so more quickly in the future.

Despite these concerns, the Universal Community Testing Program is still efficient and well-organised in getting people tested and ensuring the safety of others, with an easy booking process and accessibility to the majority of the popularity. Unfortunately though, it will have ended by the time that this article is released, as it was originally meant to end on 8th September only to be extended to 14th September. However, we can be hopeful. In the case that it makes a return you should definitely get tested for the safety of the people around you, especially your peers so that we get closer to regular old school time.